Is PC Postage right for you?

ColleenBazdarich

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Jean Sattler runs Blue Moose Distributing out of her home.Her employees, she says, include "me, myself and I." Blue Moose recently received some backup in the "shipping department," however, from the latest in Internet retail -- an online postage stamp provider.

"Now I just print up the stamps, throw (the packages) in the mailbox and I am set." Jean Sattler, Blue Moose Distrib.

Sattler receives around 25 to 50 orders per week for Metabolife356, a dietary supplement. Keeping the customer happy with rapid service used to require about an hour per day, six days per week, waiting in line at the post office. Since Sattler started using E-Stamp Internet Postage in February, her shipping operation has moved from the P.O. to the PC. "I do everything at home. I have a postage scale that I use so I can determine exactly how much postage I need. Now I just print up the stamps, throw (the packages) in the mailbox and I am set," she says. Home-grown postage It sounds like counterfeiting -- but it's completely legal. Sattler began printing her own stamps as part of beta testing for E-Stamp
ESTM
one of four companies licensed by the United States Postal Service to test so-called "PC Postage." Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, consumers can log on to a site that provides PC Postage products and buy "stamps" to be printed on their home or office printer.

The PC Postage stamp from Stamps.com

E-stamp was the first company to finish testing, the company launched sales nationally earlier this month.On Tuesday, the company filed with the SEC for an $85 million initial public offering. See story.

Stamps.comSTMP, -0.34%
is right behind them, with plans to make their product available to the public in September. Pitney BowesPBI, -0.77%
and Neopost will begin to offer their products in the coming months. Sorry Elvis fans, no colorful effigies yet.The Internet stamp is a black-and-white label with a price indicator and bar code for postage routing.Kind of boring, but very professional looking. Small office time-saver Appearance is only one way PC Postage can make a small business seem more professional. Printing stamps at home gave Sattler more time to develop Blue Moose's Web site and decrease the lag time from order to delivery.

PC Postage services are targeted at small business owners who are fed up with long lines at the post office but whose mailing volume is too small to justify the expense of leasing a postage meter. That generally means businesses with under ten employees that spend about $100 to $300 per month on postage. The products work best for businesses that are computerized already, according to Beth Ghiloni, marketing director at Pitney Bowes. People who already spend a lot of time online and at their PCs will adjust easily to the hardware and software and can integrate programs they already use for shipping. PC Postage software contains address databases, so that the address and stamp can be printed on an envelope or label simultaneously.The system also offers "address cleansing" with ZIP code corrections and routing codes within the stamp for the Postal Service. Which PC Postage is best for you? The cost of PC Postage varies depending on the company supplying the service. Software and electronic devices from E-Stamp will run you $49.99 to start, plus a per transaction fee of $4.99 to $24.99 depending on the amount of postage. The business plan from Stamps.com proposes charging a 10 percent fee for all stamps used, with a minimum fee is $3.99 and the maximum is $19.99. Due to USPS regulations, a maximum $500 worth of stamps can be purchased per transaction from any of these companies. Determining which service is best for you will depend on what type of business you run. E-Stamp's combination hardware and software product offers an "electronic vault," a hardware attachment that stores postage dollars so that stamps can be printed offline. This type of service probably makes the most sense for a modem-based company whose phone line is shared by a computer and fax. Stamps.com does not require a hardware purchase -- all stamp printing is done while online. Companies that are constantly on the Internet, using DSL or similar lines, are probably the best suited for this service. Pitney Bowes will be offering a service similar to E-Stamp's, while Neopost will have both software-hardware and software-only services. To E or not to E PC Postage was a great tool for Sattler's Blue Moose Distributing because her mailing volume was moderate and because she works by herself. Self-printing may not be the best solution, however, for a moderate- to large-sized company. A long line at the "stamp printer" doesn't exactly make for a picture of efficiency.

"If you are doing a lot of direct mail, you are going to be burning through your printer quite fast."Bruce Fienberg, Neopost

A postage meter is still the best solution for businesses that spend over $500 per month on postage. A meter is faster than your printer, and printing lots of stamps will take a toll on your equipment. "If you are doing a lot of direct mail, you are going to be burning through your printer quite fast," says Bruce Fienberg of Neopost. And it's smarter to burn through a leased metering machine than your own personal PC printer, right? Clearly, PC Postage isn't the answer for all businesses. But if your small office or home office is the right size, PC Postage could be the newest Internet solution for increasing productivity and saving your precious time.

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